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OA: Rock Cesario Column April 24, 2009

Missing music helps you keep in touch with your kids

Have you ever looked for one of your favorite LPs or CDs, and, after searching in vain for a while, you realize one of your children, who is now in college, has made off with it/

The first time that it happened to me I was both angry and proud.

Angry because one of “my” favorite CDs was gone. Proud because my daughter Loryn liked one of my favorite CDs enough to “borrow” it.

Now, when I am looking for a disc to use for Acoustic Sunday and it’s missing, it gives me a chance to call the kids. Text messaging is cold. Besides, I can’t do it.

When Loryn went to college in 2004, she just took CDs. When Matthew left last fall, he took both CDs and LPs. That speaks a lot about the staying power of vinyl, one of the older musical formats that has lasted more than 80 years and is still going strong.

Of course, both of our children, and I am sure many of yours, were exposed to music before they were born and all of their young lives.

When Loryn was a toddler, her favorite songs were “Day-O” by Harry Belafonte, “Duke of Earle” by Gene Chandler and “Spill the Wine” by Eric Burdon and War.

Matt’s favorites as a toddler were “La Bamba” by Richie Valens, Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock,” and Tom Petty’s “Breakdown.” “Rock ’n’ roll” was one of his first phrases when he started talking.

During the children’s middle school years, some Backstreet Boys, Tupac, ‘NSync, and other music like that showed up in their collection but it was in the used bin at Triple Play by the time the kids were in high school.

One year in high school, Loryn’s Christmas list included Bruce Springsteen, Billie Holiday, The Beatles, Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder and Bob Dylan.

By the time Matt got there, he favored Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Tom Petty, Lynyrd Skynyrd, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, The Beatles, Neil Young and the Clash.

Now, with both still in college, I would say that our children have a much broader selection of music to listen to than I did at that age and maybe even now.

They have exposed me to some of their new music and I do like some of it.

Flogging Molly and Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers are two that come to mind.

The one common denominator with almost all the music they are listening to is its ability to transcend time and the relabeling of musical genres. Almost every one of the artists mentioned today have been around or have had a run of popularity that has lasted 30 years, and many more than 30.

It is truly the kind of music that endures.

I guess it is time to send each one of them a blues sampler with the likes of Charlie Patton, Son House, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Little Walter and Etta James.

But first, I am going to give them a call on their cell phones and see about getting some of my discs back.

Rock Cesario owns Triple Play Records, 530 Main St., and hosts “Acoustic Sunday” from 9 a.m. to noon Sunday on Drive 105.3 FM. E-mail him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).